LIFE’S INSPIRATIONS: “…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all…” (Mark 10:43-44, the Holy Bible).

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DILLY-DALLYING IN SIGNING ARRM LAW: Indeed, if Malacanang itself certified as urgent the bill postponing the August 2011 elections at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the only reason why President Aquino is not immediately signing it into law now is that he and the other people interested to name officers-in-charge for the region are afraid the Supreme Court will declare that law unconstitutional, and allow the elections to push through just the same.

So there is a need to stall. So that those who will bring cases to the tribunal to question the constitutionality of the ARMM poll postponement will lose precious time, and therefore allow August 2011 to lapse without the elections being held.

But this is downright silly thinking. If the Supreme Court, as expected, rules that the poll postponement is unconstitutional, a new date for the elections can be set by the Court itself, or by the Commission on Elections upon the directive of the high court, even if August 2011 has already lapsed.

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ECONOMIC PLANS UP FOR ARMM: I pity our people at the ARMM if the elections are not held as scheduled, or are not held at all, because further delays in selecting the region’s new leaders by the processes mandated by electoral laws also delays all the more the implementation of plans and policies that would push it to real economic recovery and lift it out of the poverty that is gripping it now.

For example, I am personally aware that if the Pex Mangudadatu-Tingting Cojuangco tandem would get the governorship and vice governorship of ARMM, immediately the region will be able to enter into a contract for it to produce long grain rice for Muslim countries in the whole world.

I am privy to information that former Tarlac Rep. Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, husband of Tingting, has been approached by top officials of these Muslim countries, asking if he could arrange for the Philippines to produce long grain rice, in any quantity that the country could produce. Cong. Peping’s initial plan is to ask ARMM to allow its idle lands to be used for this project.

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“OIL FOR LONG GRAIN RICE” MULLED: The beauty of this plan, from the point of view of Cong. Peping, is that ARMM or the Philippines could ask that payments for the long grain rice we will produce would be in the form of oil, through some kind of a barter arrangement which is in vogue in Mindanao.

Then, as Cong. Peping’s plans envision, the Muslim countries buying the ARMM’s long grain rice could also be asked to put up refinery firms in the region so that the oil they will be paying us could be processed right here, thereby greatly bringing down oil prices, initially in Mindanao and, ultimately, in the whole country.

Splendid plans, indeed, but it seems some people in the Aquino government, who are also privy to the plans and intended projects of Cong. Peping and Tingting for ARMM, do not want these plans and projects to succeed. Indeed, I pity Filipinos from the ARMM.